A 112 year prison sentence has been imposed on a convicted rapist for crimes he had committed at the age 15. But this is unconstitutional because it doesn't allow any opportunity for possible release, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled on December 22.

The court's 4-3 ruling came in the case of Brandon Moore, who had been tried as an adult and convicted in the 2001 armed kidnapping, robbery and gang rape of a 22 years old Youngstown State University student.

The woman had been abducted as she arrived for an evening work shift and was raped repeatedly at gunpoint by Moore and an accomplice before being released. The decision has returned the case to a county court to resentence Moore, who is now 29 years old.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote that teenagers might not be locked up for life without a chance of parole if they haven't killed anyone. But this is not sure whether the ruling was applied to Moore, whose prison term imposed in 2008 consists of multiple sentences stacked on top of one another.

Justice Paul Pfeifer, writing for the majority, cited the brutality of Moore's crime and noted that the facts "do not engender a sense of sympathy for him." The U.S. Supreme Court ruling has been applied even to cases like Moore's, who would be 92 when first eligible for parole, according to Pfeifer.